Elections: Proof of Identity
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of the use of zip cards as a form of voter ID for people aged 16 and 17.
Answered by Samantha Dixon
The Government has considered a range of documents for use at the polling station, including Oyster ZIP cards. We recognise that the current Voter ID rules are overly restrictive – however we must take into account that expanding the list of documents accepted at the polling station could make the policy more challenging to administer for polling station staff and could lead to confusion among electors as to what is and is not accepted.
We believe that our proposed change to allow the use of bank cards will significantly expand the proportion of legitimate electors easily able to meet the VID requirements and have no plans to make any further additions to the list of accepted documents.
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